Impact of the Network Environment on a Common Operating Environment

DoD and Army initiatives seek to establish a Common Operating Environment (COE) that covers data centers, mobile platforms, sensors, and individuals. Computing Environments (CE) define the characteristics of the required hardware and software from enterprise servers down to handheld devices. The distinct Network Environments (NE) at these CEs influence the computing technologies, standards, and methods that can be effectively used in the COE. This paper details this influence based on a combination of system implementation experiences, field experimentation, and product and method surveys. To set the stage, the high-level features of the NEs are surveyed, considering how attributes such as hub-and-spoke, peer-to-peer, asymmetric bandwidth, loss and latency, per-node and special-use bandwidth allocation impact the various CEs. Several high-level transport problems are considered against these attributes: voice communications; video distribution; Situational Awareness (SA) via short status messages; and generic file distribution. Current and potential adaptations to the various portions of LandWarNet are compared, such as strategies (e.g., push versus pull) and transport protocols. The types of both CEs and NEs available at various locations, from high-performance servers supported by high-bandwidth, high-availability networks to handheld devices with intermittent communications, impact the applicable methods and standards. This study identifies common transport needs and NE-based responses to enable a COE to address diverse applications deployed in many environments.